The present relates generally to a ramp loading unit that holds a head outside a recording medium, and a drive having the ramp loading unit. The inventive drive is suitable, for example, for a hard disc drive (“HDD”).
Available electronic information contents have explosively increased with the recent rapid technology developments, as in the Internet. Thus, larger-capacity magnetic storages, typified by HDDs, have been increasingly demanded to store such a large amount of information.
A slider mounted with a head floats above a disc for recording and reproducing in the HDD. As a relationship between the slider and the disc at the time of activation and halt of the disc, referred to as an interface, there are a contact start stop (“CSS”) system in which the slider contacts the disc when the disc stops and starts rotating, and a ramp or dynamic loading system in which the slider retreats from the disc at the time of stopping the disc and is held by a holder called a ramp.
The CSS system would, however, cause crashes or damage the disc if frictions increase at the time of stopping and sliding. In addition, since the slider is likely to stick to the disc, the CSS system requires a texture process that forms fine convexes and concaves on the disc surface so as to prevent the absorption. This texture process increases cost, and becomes difficult particularly due to the reduced floating amount of the slider in the recent higher recording density and the associative demands for the flat disc surface.
Accordingly, the ramp loading system has recently attracted attentions. In the ramp loading system, a non-contact between the slider and the disc when the disc starts and stops rotations causes no friction that would otherwise damage the disc or absorptions between them. An additional advantage is that the ramp loading system requires no texture process and reduces the head floating amount. In the ramp loading system, a lift tab provided at the tip of a suspension that supports the slider slides on a sliding surface on the ramp while contacting the ramp with an elastic force in loading the slider on the disc and unloading the slider from the disc.
In the ramp loading system, the ramp projects above the outer circumference of the disc. Without this projection, the slider drops off between the ramp and disc in loading and unloading. On the other hand, the projection amount should be as small as possible because the projection reduces the recording area on the disc. Although it is conceivable that the projection having a large inclination angle reduces the projection amount, this configuration might cause high-speed collisions and damages between the lift tab and ramp during unloading.